And the frenzy continues.
Amid rampant speculation surrounding the CME’s imminent introduction of Bitcoin futures, Nasdaq is now set to get in on the digital gold rush.
According to the Wall Street Journal, Nasdaq and Cantor Fitzgerald are set to launch Bitcoin futures in the “first half” of next year and not only that, Cantor is apparently going to go ahead and launch bitcoin derivatives on its own exchange in H1 2018.
So cue the cheers from those who claim this represents another step towards “maturity” for the market and will thereby make it a more palatable proposition for institutional money. And also cue the jeers from those who, like Thomas Peterffy, believe that commingling cryptos with other products is a recipe for disaster.
Meanwhile, Bitcoin itself is actually plunging out of the clear blue:
And ironically, so is the Nasdaq:
As Bloomberg reminds you this morning, “we are beyond price charts [as] Bitcoin’s boom has gone further than famous market manias of the past like the tulip craze or the South Sea Bubble, has lasted longer than the dancing epidemic that struck 16th-century France, [and has] spawned conceptual art about the slaying of a “bearwhale.”
“I don’t see why there is all this hostility to it,” Goldman’s Jeff Currie said earlier on Wednesday, adding that “Bitcoin is not much different than gold because it doesn’t have liability attached to it by definition, like a security.”
Thanks, Jeff. Maybe he’s helping to lay the groundwork for what seems like Goldman’s inevitable foray into a Bitcoin trading operation.
Oh, and finally…
